


slowly, from inside

by keithkohgane



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-10-23 09:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17681021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keithkohgane/pseuds/keithkohgane
Summary: It makes him think that he wants to feel this way about magic always, that he never wants this to go away. He wants to do everything he can with this life and more. He wants to be the best wizard he can be. He wants to go further than magic. He wants, he wants so much.





	1. first year

**Author's Note:**

> i've had this wip since 2017 but then [ran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ran) said it was hogwarts au day for klance au month (on the 4th). also she's been a wonderful beta. also thanks to [heather](https://studying-mostly.tumblr.com/). enjoy.

_head full of bright ideas, innocent until it’s lit_ — how’s your mind; knox hamilton

* * *

 

Lance watches the English countryside go by from the dusty window of the Hogwarts Express as it thunders on, feeling his whole heart unraveling like it’s taped to the tracks like a tangible path back to the moment he let go of his mother’s hand on the platform. It moves ever forward and he curls his feet up on the seat, listening to Hunk talk and getting more restless with each mile that is pulled from beneath them. He is a stack of emotions, some he can name and many he can’t, fidgeting in place as they all melt together in his stomach like some overfull, messy crucible.

“I’m going to go explore the train,” he announces, interrupting Hunk’s steady musing. He grimaces, “Sorry.”

Hunk dismisses the apology. “I’m going to wait for the trolley. I’ll get you something ”

Lance ducks to Hunk’s forehead to give him a swift kiss before he runs off, laughing when he hears Hunk yell that Lance is buying next time. He runs the length of the train, going all the way to the back to say hello to Veronica and Luis and all of their friends, then up to the very front where he sees a seemingly empty compartment at first glance.

Quite spacious and clean-looking, it has a huge window that makes up for the whole upper half of the train’s outer wall. The seats are a different colour and there are dividers every two seat spaces or so. In one of the seats closest to the window is a boy, sitting sunken right down into it. Only his head and shoulders lean against the backrest. He’s looking out the window; the sunlight flashes across his frown in quick bursts as the train powers towards the school and it makes his hair look a little less than jet black and his skin a little less than ivory. There’s a black tie around his neck, no distinguishing colours on his uniform. He’s another first year. His face is drawn in thought.

Lance knocks on the glass door, unable to help himself. He’s never met another wizard his age that hasn’t been Hunk, whom he’s known since forever. All his cousins are either already in Hogwarts or secondary school, or they’re too young. Platform 9 ¾ was so full he didn’t even know where to look, never mind who. Now, looking at another peer, there’s that same fizzing, bubbling excitement that started small when he got his letter. It’s like when his mother takes him to Diagon Alley, or when he used to insist on going with his brother and sister to leave them off at the train station, or knowing he’s standing in a train full of budding wizards. The air is saturated in magic and it’s coming from everywhere, every last person here.

The boy’s eyes flick up to him, his bored expression unchanging. He doesn’t actually say anything, so Lance doesn’t really hesitate when he slides the door open.

“Hello!” he says. “Can I sit here?”

The boy frowns. “I don’t think so. This is for prefects.”

His voice is quiet but it’s flat with certainty and something else that makes Lance feels like he was wrong for even knocking on the door. He’s suddenly unsure of himself for the first time since he arrived in King’s Cross. It’s not like it’s possible this boy is even passably a prefect either, so what he’s saying makes even less sense. He frowns back at the boy, waiting a moment for something. An apology? A sympathetic smile?

“O-kay,” Lance says slowly, hearing t come out like a question.

The boy continues to look vaguely annoyed.

Lance wonders how someone could be so negative on a day like today. He wonders how you could possibly not feel the magic in the air, as infectious as it is.

“Right,” Lance mutters, “sure.” He throws him a dirty look as he leaves, but the boy is already looking back out the window.

He drops hard into his seat back in the original compartment.

“So?” Hunk asks Lance proffering a cauldron cake.

Lance pauses for a moment, trying to decide whether or not to tell Hunk what happened. Something about that boy made him feel stupid which is _not_ what he is. Lance likes people, but he’s never met a person like this guy. It’s not a nice feeling.

Lance sighs, pushing it out a little more theatrically than necessary. “Nothing. A jerk in one of the front compartments.” He grins. “Doesn’t matter anyway. Veronica and Luis say hi.”

~

Hunk gets sorted into Hufflepuff, what a surprise. Hunk has one of the biggest hearts Lance has ever known. Still, he claps the loudest and the hardest as Hunk blushes with pride and makes his way over to the field of golden cheers. He fits in perfectly among them, his uniform blooming in yellow accents.

Lance watches the next few people to get sorted with a buzz in his veins. He’s been waiting for this moment for years. Between his mother telling her children stories about it and his older siblings getting their letters and getting shipped (trained?) off to Hogwarts, this has to be one of the best things to happen to him in his whole life. His heart has been in overdrive a probably unhealthy length of time, kind of nervous, mostly excited. He’d chatted Hunk’s ear off in excitement from King’s Cross, then all the way across the lake until they reached the castle. He’d forgotten about any unpleasant encounter on the train.

That unpleasant encounter gets called up to be sorted next.

“Keith Kogane!” calls the Deputy Headmaster.

Lance watches him walk up to the stool, his features betraying the slightest frown. Lance doesn’t get the frown, he doesn’t get the way he still looks bored, the way all of this seems to be so much less through his eyes. He doesn’t get how this kind of kid ends up sitting in a prefect’s compartment.

The hat doesn’t sit for very long on Keith’s dark head before it’s shouting, “Gryffindor!”

And he _frowns_. Still. The Gryffindor table erupts, a volcano of noise and shining red and the guy frowns more. Lance watches him walk straight over to a group of 6th years and settle in like he belongs there and he feels a flash of annoyance. The boy acts like none of this means a thing.

Lance looks up—straight up at the sky that’s not the sky but magical enough to feel like it, and watches the stars twinkling explosively at him. They’re just that bit too close and he thinks that might be what gives them away.

And then it’s his turn. He’s not nervous, he finds. Not even a little bit. He’s buzzing—literally, his leg starts bouncing as soon as he sits on the stool, impervious to his will to stop it. He feels the excitement in his veins, feeling the same way his aunt’s dog looks when she comes home after work every day. It’s weird that the two moments are comparable; one, a huge step in Lance’s life, and two, an everyday occurrence, but nonetheless.

_What a loud brain_ , says a voice in his head.

Lance almost laughs. This is magic.

It’s something he’s been exposed to his whole life with his mother being a witch, and he wasn’t that old when he started showing signs of being a wizard himself. It’s not new, and experiencing it isn’t new. But beyond anything and everything else—beyond the entrance to platform 9 ¾; beyond the self-driving carriages and self-driving boats—this hat sitting on his head and laying his whole mind open before it is the most personal form of magic he’s ever experienced. He falls in love with this world all over again.

The sorting hat is amused at his delight, he can sense it. He can sense it trying to understand everything about him, flicking through everything he is.

It makes him think that he wants to feel this way about magic always, that he never wants this to go away. He wants to do everything he can with this life and more. He wants to be the best wizard he can be. He wants to go further than magic. He wants, he wants so much.

“Slytherin!” the hat shouts.

The first thing Lance thinks is that Veronica will be so proud. The second is that the silver will bring out his eyes, and the green will complement his skin. Then he gets swept up in the cheers coming from the Slytherin table and in Hunk’s bright grin from the table right next to his. His eyes stray to the Gryffindor table and catch on the back of Keith’s head for a moment before all his fast emotions steal his concentration. He’s the first Slytherin of the family. But it doesn’t matter, he tells himself. He takes a seat with his new family.

 

~

 

Lance takes to Hogwarts like a fish to water. Almost literally. He goes to the Great Lake the first weekend of term for a swim.

When the Slytherin prefect was showing all the first years around the common room, he explained various aspects of it including that the part of the wall extending into the ceiling that’s made of glass is a window to the Great Lake and that sometimes the mermaids come to say hi on the quiet days. He’d heard about them, but he didn’t know they were so friendly. The moment the words were out of the prefect’s mouth Lance had made plans to try and pay them a visit. Hunk wasn’t very excited about this but Lance knows he can’t resist the family jam recipe, even if it comes at him as a bribe.

(“I want the universe to know that I still don’t agree with what you’re doing,” Hunk says, spreading a mountainous spoonful of jam on his bread at lunch. “This is dangerous and they should be left alone.”

“Sure thing buddy,” Lance replied from behind the book on mermaids he’d checked out of the library that morning. “Totally noted.”

“The Giant Squid is down there, you know.”

“Cool! Even better!”

“Merlin help us.”)

By the lakeside, Hunk firmly refuses to touch the water, even when Lance tries calling for him from a little ways off the shore. He isn’t even the only one frolicking in the lake, but Hunk’s stubbornness is a force of nature. Lance is the furthest out of all the swimmers, and he would’ve gone further too if Hunk hadn’t yelled incoherently for a solid minute when he tried to keep swimming away.

“How are you expecting to find them?” Hunk calls. He’s sitting by Lance’s things, tilting his face up to the sky.

Lance looks down at his limbs, treading water. “I was kind of hoping to just go swimming and they’d find me. I haven’t had enough time to look up how to attract them yet.”

No exaggerating. Their very first week of school and the teachers have already started giving them homework. Written homework too. He has spent the only downtime he could get hanging out with Hunk.

He’d been hoping the mermaids would just be curious enough about a human swimming in their lake that they’d come up to meet him. He could impress them with his two legs and awesome swimming tricks, and maybe they could show his some cool mermaid magic.

“Maybe you could lure them with their favourite food next time!” Hunk says.

Lance hums. “That’s not a bad idea.” He shivers. There’s only so long one can last in Scottish water even when it’s had a whole summer to heat up, and Lance is sun-blooded. “It’s getting cold. I’m com—”

Suddenly there’s a huge _whoosh_ overhead and Hunk and Lance both look up to see a flash of grey zipping over the lake followed by a one in red. Lance hears laughter and when the indistinguishable flying objects start doing loop de loops he realises they’re students flying on brooms.

Lance watches them with a sparkling fascination. After his classes, the most exciting thing about Hogwarts is Quidditch. Living in a house in a muggle city, he and his siblings aren’t allowed to own broomsticks, nevermind fly on them. Lance would fly at Hunk’s place if he could, which has acres of land and is well secluded, but Hunk doesn’t really like flying and he doesn’t own a broomstick. So Lance has only been allowed to dream of the moment when he finally gets his butt on a broom.

Then the fliers stop for long enough for Lance to recognise one of them and his mood sours. He can tell from that mop of black hair that it’s that Keith boy. Lance can just about see his face but he knows he’s not frowning. He looks different now, like he’s grown different features that have made him a new, more inviting person.

Lance sniffs, knowing better.

Keith follows his companion into a dangerous nosedive towards the water, pulling out of it at _just_ the perfect moment. He smiles wide at his success. The dive itself is beautifully manoeuvred, really, which makes Lance hate it. Of course the obnoxious and rude and completely undeserving guy is also a prodigy at Quidditch. They don’t even start flying lessons for another two weeks. Next thing Lance knows, he’s going to be showing everyone up in Defence Against the Dark Arts.

 

~

 

Keith shows everyone up in Defence Against the Dark Arts.

After a few weeks of theory work, Professor Kolivan moves the class on to practical work which Lance thinks is amazing. They’re learning the Full Body-Bind Curse. He jumps up from the breakfast table at the first sound of the bell and drags a grumbling Hunk behind him. Hunk understands his excitement within certain measures; those measures being after 8 in the morning. In his words, “Hogwarts is only magical when I don’t have to wake up early for it.”

“You live in a giant magical castle,” Hunk yawns, half-tired, half-amused. “You have a witch for a mother, and you know fifty more spells than you should at this point in your magical learning. How are you still so amazed by everything?” Hunk side-eyes him. “Connor still hasn’t figured out who turned his pillow into a magical whoopie cushion.”

Lance is not technically allowed to know the charm but Veronica is almost as impatient as he is with magic and she’s weak to his affection. He’s been getting her to teach him spells with her wand illegally for the past three years. He grins proudly. “And he won’t ever find out if I get my way.”

(Which he will. Hunk won’t rat on him.)

“But anyway,” Lance continues, “this Defence Against the Dark Arts class is different. We’re using spells on each other. Real one-on-one action!” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively as Hunk laughs.

He and his siblings would never try something like that on each other at home lest their mother find out. Too risky. They stuck to charming objects and the odd insects to avoid detection.

“Maybe I could partner up with Achara,” he sighs, remembering the way the Gryffindor girl smiled at him a few days ago. “That girl has even better hair than I do.”

“Good luck with that, buddy,” Hunk says in complete sincerity, patting Lance’s shoulder and heading off to his own class.

Lance feels bolstered by his support and bursts into the classroom, but next to his usual desk is the last Gryffindor he wants to see. His mood takes a quick U-turn.

Keith is leaning on Lance’s side of the desk reading, one leg straight and one leg slightly bent like he’s a cool guy from one of those old movies his mom loves that’s always saving the day and getting the girl. The look isn’t working for Keith. If anything it just makes him look more like a douche. Lance huffs.

Keith looks up at him then, that familiar nearly-frown on his face. It always makes Lance unsure. He never knows how to act when he’s faced with it because the guy never says anything, he just frowns like Lance is doing something wrong but Lance doesn’t know _what_.

Lance frowns back, but doesn’t make a move. He grits his teeth. They stare at each other in a weird standoff. Keith’s fingers twitch upward like he wants to wave but thinks better of it. Lance turns his frown to those stupid fingerless gloves Keith always wears, unwilling to be the first to talk.

Keith doesn’t seem like the type to move for anyone and Lance doesn’t want to give him that satisfaction that he’ll do it for him. He also doesn’t want to join Keith and invite him to sit next to him, but he can’t give up that desk. He’s been sitting there three times a week for the past few weeks. It’s his by any and every unspoken law of the student body. A front-of-the-class desk to help him pay attention and he has the only chair that doesn’t squeak. He checked. It’s the loyalty to this desk that makes him meet Keith at it, fuming.

He opens his mouth but Keith beats him to it. “Can I sit here?”

Lance is taken aback by the question, the déjà vu leaving a sour taste in his mouth. It doesn’t make sense. He turns his head to find his usual seatmate, but John is avoiding his eyes, having taken this opportunity to sit next to Andy. Lance curses John’s crush and he also curses Keith because he knows how intimidating John thinks Keith looks and that is definitely part of the reason he lost his seatmate.

When he turns back to face him, Keith raises his eyebrows in what’s very clearly a confused expression.

“Uh,” he starts, “Look Lance—it’s Lance, right?”

Lance ignores the question in offence. “Why?”

“Why… do I want to know your name?”

“Why do you want to sit next to me?” Lance squeezes his bag strap tight.

Keith isn’t taken aback by the venom in his voice.

“It’s a practical class,” he says. “We need partners. You’re the only person I’ve spoken to here.”

Which… can’t be true, right? Okay so Keith sits at a desk by himself in every class that Lance shares with him, even when there are some trios sitting together and it’s an even number. Most of the time it’s the corner furthest in the back. But he and Lance only know each other from that interaction on the train which wasn’t exactly a pleasant one. And there are other Gryffindors here that would normally share a room with him in the dorms, so unless Keith refuses to talk to them he has to know someone else. Lance knows the names of nearly everyone in the class already and they all know his.

But then Keith says it so obviously, so matter of fact with a little shrug like it’s not something that reaches right down and secures Lance’s sympathy. Is he so used to not having friends that he doesn’t even think it’s an issue?

Immediately, Lance is annoyed that Keith was able to get his sympathy so quickly. Before he can make a decision, Professor Kolivan enters and instructs them all to sit with a partner.

Lance sucks at his lips and growls out, “Fine.”

He sits in his usual seat though, the one that Keith was definitely going for, just to let him know he’s not going to be intimidated out of his own place. He is boss here.

It doesn’t really matter anyway. When Professor Kollivan waves the desks clear of the middle of the room and they all stand to practice the curse, Keith kicks his butt.

 

~

 

Lance finds his sister alone on the grassy shore of the lake and immediately feels tears sting his eyes. She takes one look at him and holds her arms out, letting him bury himself in her robes.

“I’m surprised you held out for this long,” Veronica says, smoothing down the hair at the crown of his head and kissing it. “I was expecting you to find a way to break into the Ravenclaw tower.”

Lance lets out a huff of a breath that’s meant to pass for a laugh. She knows him, she gets it. She sways gently as she holds him, letting him cry.

Lance has been homesick this whole time at Hogwarts but but he’s never been this sad about it before. He’s never needed his mom’s hugs so much, or needed to hear one of his dad’s slow stories. He knows he’s lucky that he’s got his brother and sister in Hogwarts and it is comfort but it’s not a whole comfort. There’s little else like a full family bubbling and thriving around you and the castle doesn’t feel the same as home. For all the amazing things in it, he doesn’t think magic could ever recreate the comfort of his own home surrounded by those he loves.

They just sit and Veronica lets him cry it out, rubbing his back when he gets the hiccups.

“I really miss home,” he says, voice thick and quiet.

“I know nene,” she says. She hands him a piece of French toast she’d stolen from the breakfast table. “They miss you too.”

He nods and tries to pretend the toast tastes like the one his dad makes. He thinks Veronica might be one of the best people in the whole world. She smells like parts of home and he breathes it in.

“Veronica?”

A deep voice cuts through their moment and Lance turns to see a very tall and handsome student smiling down at them. His bright red and gold tie pulls a sour mood out of Lance purely out of habit.

“Hey Shiro,” Veronica says, letting go of Lance and standing up to properly greet him. Lance stays back as he realises that this is the Takashi Shirogane. A rare streak of shyness wakes inside him.

Captain of the Charms Club, Transfiguration Club, Vice-Captain to the Gryffindor Quidditch team and extremely talented student, the word is that Shiro is good enough of a wizard to invent new spells already. There’s a rumour that he developed a more effective way to perform the Forceful Spell and that Professor Kollivan is writing it into the curriculum. He’s revered by everyone, and that definitely includes Lance.

He’s also Keith’s adopted brother (or sort of, is what all the whispers say, leaving Lance with curiosity burning like a rash), which is a point of interest in itself. Not that _Keith_ is interesting, but with a Shiro for a (sort of?) brother Lance would think it would rub off on someone.  Maybe they would turn out a little less… Keith.

“Alright Lance,” Veronica says. “Time for you to go to class. Shiro and I have a project to finish.”

She smooths his hair down again and he takes all the comfort he can get from it.

“Lance,” Shiro says quietly. “You’re a friend of Keith’s, right?”

The question catches Lance off guard. He doesn’t really answer Shiro with more than an awkward twitch of his lips and a nod, feeling a little ashamed. Then he feels annoyed that he feels ashamed. Shiro clearly just doesn’t know what kind of guy Keith really is. (Irrational or no, Keith is still a jerk of epic proportions.)

Shiro can’t be pulling “friends” out of thin air though. Lance is not Keith’s friend, and he’d never call himself that, but if Shiro is saying this, does that mean Keith thinks they’re friends? Or maybe Shiro knows Keith’s not interested in making friends because he’s too arrogant and he’s politely trying to brush over it. He wonders for a moment what Keith might have said about him, and then he tells himself he doesn’t care. Because he doesn’t. Keith can say whatever he wants, Lance still won’t be his friend.

 

~

 

Lance thought the worst thing to ever happen to him in his whole life was when his brother's twins filled his boxers with shaving foam when he was sleeping but he was dead wrong. The worst thing to ever happen to him in his eleven years of life is happening right now.

“You what?” Lance squawks.

Hunk blinks at him unimpressed. “I invited Keith to come practice with us.”

“Deception!” he wails, ignoring how Hunk rolls his eyes.

“Come on, Lance.”

“ _Disgrace!_ ”

Hunk is betraying him. He knows that Keith is Lance’s rival and he’s still betraying him. The feeling clobbers him and he pouts, crossing his arms.

“Why would you do that to me?”

Hunk rolls his eyes, but he wraps Lance in a big warm hug. Hunk gives the best hugs; they’re so comfortable and soothing. He knows it too.

“Because I like the guy,” Hunk says somewhere above Lance’s head.  “He’s a pretty cool Herbology partner and I want to get to know him outside of class. You know I don’t like flying anyway. I figured you would want to practice with someone who can actually, you know, _help you practice_. Considering he’s already on his house’s Quidditch team, he can probably give you some pointers.”

Lance makes an indignant noise. No way he’s _ever_ going to take advice from _Keith_ . Even if the guy can fly (oh _boy_ can he fly; Gryffindor’s first match against Ravenclaw was won in a large part because of Keith) it doesn’t make this situation any better. Lance can be an amazing Quidditch player and get on his own House’s team without Keith’s help. And he’s planning on doing it better.

He’s going to do everything better, in fact. He’s going to be a wholly better wizard.

Hunk squeezes him. “Also because the last five times you’ve stayed up there for at least an hour after I’ve come down and I don’t want to hang out down here alone anymore.”

Lance lets out a small whine.

“Fine,” he sniffs, stepping out of the hug and picking up his broom. It’s Veronica’s old one. “But his personality only gets worse up close.”

“Hi.”

Keith’s low voice is irritatingly familiar.

Lance looks at him and his stomach drops. It’s clear from Keith’s expression that he heard what Lance said about him. He doesn’t want to meet Lance’s eyes and his jaw is set. Shame swells in Lance. He can imagine his mother’s disappointment if she’d heard what he said. He mirrors Keith and looks at the ground.

“Hey Keith!” Hunk says, clapping Keith on the shoulder. “Thanks for coming. Lance and I saw your game last week. It was awesome.”

Out loud, Lance would disagree with him, or at least play down the compliments. There’s no way in hell he would let Keith know that he thought it was one of the best things he’d seen at Hogwarts so far. And almost everything he’s seen at Hogwarts has been the best thing so far. Watching those fourteen players up in the air skilfully sending the Quaffle and Bludgers to each other had been incredible and he’d spent most of the game half upright in his seat.

But when the Snitch had come out to play, watching Keith and the Ravenclaw Seeker had been even more magical than the rest of the match. The way they’d darted around the pitch like blurs, weaving fearlessly and beautifully around the stands and the other players had Lance feeling like he was flying around with them. And when Keith had caught the Snitch; his fist raised in victory, a fast smile transforming his features, Lance had felt his heart beat with longing. He wanted to feel exactly what Keith was feeling right there, knowing he’d played well and being rewarded for it. Not that he’d admit it.

The thing about Hunk, is that if he's happy and projecting all that sunny warmth towards you, it's impossible to ignore. It seeps into you until you’ve forgotten everything except that feeling. Kind of like his hugs, actually. So even if Keith is the one Hunk is grinning at, even if he's getting the brunt of this emotional soothing, Lance feels his complicated ball of Keith Emotions disentangling itself a bit.

He sighs. “Whatever. Slytherin’s going to beat Gryffindor for the Cup anyway.”

Keith’s small smile falls, but he's not frowning at Lance anymore. He raises a challenging eyebrow and something in Lance sparks at it, ready to take him on in whatever he says.

“Oh yeah?” Keith says.

Lance takes a step closer and puffs his chest out. “Yeah. Just like Slytherin is going to beat Gryffindor tonight.”

He can hear Hunk rolling his eyes beside him. “What about Hufflepuff?” he mutters, but even he knows he's not going to win.

With Hunk’s presence Lance can feel a difference in the atmosphere between him and Keith. There's less of a bitterness to it, he thinks. Keith has to feel it too because he smiles crookedly at Lance, swinging a leg over his broom. It's not a warm smile by any means, but it's the first smile of Keith’s Lance has ever seen directed towards him. It changes the dynamic a bit more.

“Show me what you’ve got then, Hotshot,” Keith says and he kicks off before Lance can say anything.

Lance is in the air not a second later, chasing Keith’s red shirt and determined to beat him.

 

~

 

“Weird.” Lance blurts the word before he can help himself.

Hunk side eyes him. “For the last time Lance. Keith is not a vampire. He’s a growing boy like you—” Lance scowls “—and he can have a normal birthday just like every other human person in this school.”

Lance and Hunk have just arrived in the Great Hall, and when Lance sees Keith, he's sitting at the Gryffindor table with a small birthday cake in front of him. Shiro is lighting the candles with his wand and his friends are showering Keith with cheerful birthday wishes. The sight makes Lance uneasy. The only people paying attention to Keith are Shiro’s friends. Not one of Keith’s peers are there.

“Not that,” Lance snaps, still ruffled by the comparison between himself and Keith even if Hunk was just natural fact of life. Not to mention he's already given up on the vampire theory. They made temporary vampire-repelling amulets in Defence Against the Dark Arts last week and Keith hadn't seemed bothered even once by Lance’s. He’d even complimented Lance on how much it smelled like garlic. At least, Lance is taking it as a compliment. It smelled more like garlic than Keith’s did for sure.

Besides, that’s an older theory about a younger Keith and a younger Lance. Lance doesn’t know if he’s slowly becoming immune to the general standoffishness through daily exposure, but Keith is becoming marginally— _marginally_ —more tolerable.

“Then what is it?” Hunk looks at him perplexed.

Lance flounders for an excuse. “He’s uh—um Scorpio. Didn’t see that coming, I guess.” In his mind he compares the pros and cons of looking and sounding stupid to the pros and cons of looking like he’s actually in any way concerned about Keith’s welfare.

Hunk looks at Keith thoughtfully. “I don't know Lance. I can kind of see it.”

Lance laughs off his awkwardness. He agrees with Hunk anyway. With Keith’s whole dark and brooding thing he’s got going on, the Scorpio jumps out.

Keith is smiling when they walk up to him and it throws Lance off. He’s never seen Keith look any more than satisfied up close. The only times he’s seen him smile are when he’s playing Quidditch.

“Happy birthday, Keith!” Hunk says, hugging him tightly but briefly.

Lance nearly laughs when Keith’s smile turns to an open surprise. He keeps it to a smirk instead.

“Happy birthday, man,” Lance says. “Even if you do have nine months on me, I’m still going to kick your butt in Quidditch.”

Just because it’s the guy’s birthday it doesn’t mean he has to go easy on him.

Keith rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling a little. “Sure, Lance,” he says. “Looking forward to it.”

Lance has to smile back.

 

~

 

“Move over.”

Lance frowns, tightening his grip on the telescope. “I’m not done yet.”

He does his best to try and pinpoint Jupiter but he can feel Keith’s impatience beside him and it’s impossible to concentrate. Instead of the planets they’re supposed to be charting, the only thing he can see is Keith’s irritated frown in his mind. He can see it perfectly, from the crease between his eyebrows and the downturn of his mouth to the way his shoulders rise stiffly when he crosses his arms. Keith is always a little grumpy during the midnight astronomy classes but on the days that clash with his early morning Quidditch practices it’s even worse. A tired Keith is never a fun Keith.

Lance pulls away from the telescope with a noise of frustration. “Will you be quiet?”

Keith’s narrows his eyes. “I haven’t said anything.”

“Well—you,” Lance falters, waving his hands vaguely. “It’s your vibe man! You’re so loud.”

“You are as of yet the loudest here Mr McClain,” Professor Coran says calmly from the other side of the Astronomy tower, and his voice immediately sets embarrassment burning in Lance’s cheeks. “It might be a good idea to settle down and work _with_ your partner, not against him.”

Lance pouts and steps away from the telescope, not looking at Keith as he takes his turn. He looks at his chart, filling in all the blanks he can from his most recent look. His eyes glance involuntarily at Keith’s chart to see if he’s been able to fill in more than him. He hasn’t and satisfaction stretches in Lance’s stomach.

“Mercury’s in the fourth house,” says Keith in a low voice, like he’s peeved that Lance got them called out in front of everyone.

Lance looks back at his own chart to write in Pandora. “It’s not. Menkar is on the other side.”

Keith doesn’t even acknowledge him. He just looks back through the telescope and Lance bristles. Being right still doesn’t make him worthy to notice apparently. He grits his teeth and glares at Keith.

“Huh,” Keith muses after a few moments, even quieter than before. “You’re right.”

Lance’s poisonous anger stops short.

“Did you find Iapetus?” Keith asks, still just as quiet.

Lance looks down at his chart. “No. Just Pandora.”

“Okay, well I found Iapetus,” Keith says. He comes away from the telescope and sits next to Lance, lining their charts up together and pointing. “Here.”

Lance scribbles it in with his quill. “Here’s Pandora.”

“Do you want to take a look for Saturn’s house?” Keith asks, looking up at Lance. He yawns, rubbing his eyes.

Lance checks his chart and he’s nearly got it figured out. “Sure.”

 

~

 

Lance’s record at holding a handstand is at an all time high (twelve seconds) and it is eleven percent because it could be impressing a cute second year and eighty nine percent because he’s avoiding studying for his exams.

He’s not _entirely_ avoiding them in the sense that he has studied that the odds are he’ll be okay for the exams but he just can’t get himself to concentrate. Even in the library where the atmosphere would put pressure on anyone to just study he couldn’t do it for more than twenty minutes at a time. And that was with longer breaks in between.

Hunk had eventually taken pity on him and now the two of them are studying out under the pale, late morning sun. Well Hunk is. At least he’s patient enough not to nag Lance about doing his own study just yet.

“Why are you doing handstands?”

Lance looks up at Keith between his arms but the movement makes him flop onto his back. Now he glares at Keith.

“You made me fall,” he says.

Keith sits next to Hunk. “Sorry.”

He throws his bag and robes next to Lance’s and pushes up the sleeves of his shirt. It makes him look dishevelled, but that’s a normal look on Keith with his scruffy black hair, his gloves, and the top button of his shirt that’s always undone. He isn’t even wearing his tie today. Lance, in contrast, prides himself on an impeccable uniform every day.

“No, you’re not,” Lance grumbles.

“It was just a handstand.”

“I was beating my record!”

“It’s not like it was going to get into the Guinness thing—”

Hunk interrupts quickly. “Lance is just grumpy because he’s worried about exams.”

Lance sits up and turns his glare to Hunk who studiously ignores him, continuing to flip through his History of Magic notes. Keith cocks his head at Lance.

“That can’t be the problem,” he says.

“Well we can’t all be perfect students,” Lance says, narrowing his eyes.

Keith rolls his eyes but otherwise ignores his retort. “Who was the General of the first Troll War?”

“Barnardo the Brash,” Lance says, exasperated. “But everyone knows—”

“What did he contribute to the wizard side?”

“He had tons of money so he could afford to arm them with all the troll fighting supplies they needed and owning half of the country and the people in it helps.”

“And?”

Lance eyes him warily. “What are you trying to prove?”

Keith levels his gaze. “That you’re fine for exams. You’re not a bad student.” He says it like it’s another fact about the first Troll War. “What else did Barnardo do?”

Lance huffs out an annoyed breath, but he answers anyway.

 

~

 

Hunk groans for the sixth time in the last fifteen minutes which Lance does not understand. Exams are over, the sun is shining bright and warm—and they’re by the lake, arguably the second best place in Hogwarts. Even Keith looks like he’s enjoying himself. His tie, jumper, and robes are lying a little ways up the shore with Lance’s stuff and he’s skipping stones across the lake’s surface. Lance is watching from the water for the moment but he’s itching to start a contest with Keith because he’s certain he could win. He’s spent a lot of his free time down here by the lake this past year.

“Did you ever meet a mermaid then?” Keith says as he looks for more flat stones.

Lance sighs. “No. Not even through that window in the common room.”

Keith pauses and cocks his head at him. “So you can’t cross it off your first year bucket list then.”

“I might be pushing the deadline back a little.” Lance doesn’t look at him when he says it. “Besides. They won’t be able to resist my charm for too long. Even my wand is supposed to be partial to water.”

He can feel Keith rolling his eyes, but Keith doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Lance has a connection with the merpeople. They’re kindred spirits.

“Isn’t that just a myth about Hazel wood?” Keith asks.

Lance doesn’t know. “No!”

Keith snorts.

Hunk groans again. Lance flicks his wand, sending an arc of lake water in his direction. It’s not a spell for first years, but his mother says he has the ocean in his blood. The same as his wand, water magic comes easily to him.

Hunk sputters and his head shoots up. “Lance!”

“You looked so bummy. And sad.”

Hunk huffs and wipes his face. “I _am_ sad. I’m sad it’s over. Hogwarts has to be one of the best places in the world.”

“It’s not over,” Lance says, walking out of the shallow edge of the lake to join him. “We’re just taking a break.”

Which is long overdue, Lance feels. He can’t wait to get home and into his parents’ arms. He’s been counting down the days for two months. Besides, sometimes they go back to Cuba in the summer, which is what they’re doing this year.

“A nine week break,” Hunk says. “That’s nine weeks without magic. And my friends.”

“It’s not like we’re going to visit each other any less than we did before. Or not write each other letters.” Lance turns to Keith. “Oh hey, Keith, that reminds me. Here’s my address.”

He pulls out a scrap of parchment and a quill from his bag, scribbling his English address and his Cuban address as neatly as he can as he leans on his leg. Keith takes it with a puzzled expression.

“What’s this for?” Keith says.

“So you can write to me, obviously. Shiro said he has an owl.”

Keith regards Lance carefully with a complicated expression Lance can’t read. “Okay.” He fumbles in his pocket for his own scrap of parchment and uses Lance’s quill to write his own address. “Here’s mine.”

“Great,” Lance smiles, flopping down next to Hunk, trying to soak in all the magical sunlight he can. (He knows it’s just regular sunlight, but Hogwarts is a place of possibilities.) Keith lays down next to them until he and Lance grow too restless and Lance finally challenges him to that stone skipping contest. Lance says he wins, Hunk says they draw. Keith just scoffs but he still looks like he’s enjoying himself.


	2. second year

_keep our teeth nice and clean_ — alright; supergrass

* * *

 

“Lance,” Hunk pants from about two feet directly below, “hurry up.”

“I’m trying, buddy!” Lance says. He cranes his neck and twists as best as he can in his position but it’s hard when Hunk has him in this tight a hold. “I can’t see him.”

“Well I can’t carry you forever, so you’re going to have to try a little faster.” Hunk tries to readjust his grip but it just makes Lance slip a little and he loses half a foot of advantage over the crowd. Hunk grunts and shuffles on his feet.

“Lance—”

“Found him!”

Hunk releases him gratefully and the two of them weave through the crowd of Hogwarts students and family members milling around on the platform to get to their friend. Keith seems stuck to Shiro the way he’s standing, tucked right into his robes like an extra pocket. An unfriendly-looking sort of pocket.

When they’re close enough to be heard over the crowd, Lance calls Keith’s name and the effect is immediate. His face smooths out and he unsticks himself a little from his brother.

Up close, Lance can see why he didn’t find Keith sooner. They’ve kept in touch but Lance hasn’t seen him all summer and he’s let his hair grow out, the inky black strands beginning to drip into his eyes and down his neck.

“Hey guys,” Keith says, his eyes clear.

“Your hair,” Lance blurts.

Keith fingers a strand, his eyes crossing to look at his own fringe. It’s a goofy sort of look on him that should be completely out of place on that face, but Keith has a lot of surprisingly funny expressions hidden in his face inventory.

“Yeah,” Keith says, his eyes flicking to Lance’s and away.  “It’s different, I guess.”

Lance studies the droopy, messy hairstyle. He shrugs. “Fits your whole thing.”

Keith doesn’t say anything but he has a half-amused slope to his eyebrows, so Lance grins.

Shiro offers his hand to Hunk. “It’s good to see you boys. Did you have a good summer?” He takes Lance’s hand then and sure, Lance isn’t the most superstitious person in his family but this handshake from the Takashi Shirogane, wand arm to wand arm, feels like some damn good luck.

“Uh,” Lance says like a goon.

“Really cool, Mr Head Boy Sir,” Hunk responds, and Lance hears Keith snort at the title somewhere in the background but he’s really too busy deciding whether or not to wash his hand to catch his eye. Hunk nudges at Lance’s ribs a little to bring him back. “Had a really cool summer.”

“Yeah,” Lance manages, feeling embarrassed for the first time since… since he met Keith, probably. A family trait then. “Great summer.”

“Good to hear,” Shiro says and then Keith is moving away, straightening his robes and ready to leave the solid comfort of his family for that of his friends. “I’ll see you later, Keith,” Shiro says, his eyes landing on his boyfriend in the crowd. He nods to Lance and Hunk. “Stay out of trouble, alright?”

Lance knows it’s a joke but he grins and throws his arm around Keith’s shoulders. Keith has grown more than Lance has this summer which puts them at the same height if Lance relaxes his shoulders, but just underneath him if he squares them and straightens his legs a bit. “Don’t worry, sir,” he says. “I’m an excellent influence, especially on Keith.” He has the satisfaction of hearing Shiro laugh at his words before he takes his leave.

“Not even five minutes around you and you’re already being an idiot,” Keith says as soon as Shiro is out of earshot. Lance doesn’t have to look to know what face he’s making now.

“Hey!” Lance lets go of Keith’s shoulders and crosses his arms. “I’m never an idiot.”

Keith makes an unconvinced sound.

“Smart enough to have found us a compartment already.”

Keith looks at him. “A good one?”

“It’s pretty sweet,” Hunk says.

“The best,” Lance grins. He pushes the sleeves of his top up his arms. “Race you there!”

Keith doesn’t wait to start sprinting after Lance even if he’s yelling, “I don’t even know where it is!”, laughing when Lance does.

~

Keith isn’t fast enough to pull his hand off the bench before Lance sits on it.

“Lance,” he frowns, but Lance doesn’t move. He’s feeling irritable and Keith is always the easiest to pull into an irritable mood to match. Lance never really likes to feel irritable all alone.

Hunk, friend extraordinaire, immediately recognises that something’s up.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, placing a heaped plate of lunch in front of Lance.

“I have five essays to do already,” Lance groans,. “Two for the same class! It’s the first week and Professor Kollivan—”

Lance shrieks in surprise as Keith wiggles his fingers hard under his bum.

“Keith!” he says, turning to the perpetrator.

Keith glares back. “Get off.”

Hunk sighs.

Lance pretends to think about his answer. “No.” Then he farts.

Keith can’t hide his appalled expression and Lance almost falls off his seat in laughter.

“Lance, you’re disgusting,” Hunk says, but his eyes are bright behind his book and his fingers tap merrily on the page edges.

Lance grins. “I’m hilarious.”

“You’re annoying,” Keith says and he yanks his hand out from underneath Lance which makes him lose his balance. He catches himself on the table.

“Oi!” Lance says. He straightens his uniform and sticks Keith with a look. “I’m not annoying, I’m charming.”

“You’re as charming as Steve’s toad.”

Lance contemplates this. “Steve’s toad has a mustache. Charming men have mustaches.”

Keith narrows his eyes at him like he’s trying to figure out how low Lance will actually go. Lance grins and kind of wants him to ask.

“That’s ridiculous,” Keith says finally, “and so are you.”

Lance pouts. “Still not as ridiculous as giving students _two essays_ to do in their first week back.” He starts digging into his food. “Veronica is in seventh year and she only has one to write for each of her classes.”

Hunk looks up from his book. “If it’s bothering you that much, why don’t you just do them now so you get them out of the way?”

Hunk’s right of course but it’s the first week back. Lance had planned to spend it easing gently back into classes and homework, not diving in headfirst. Besides, he’s not in the mood to try to concentrate. Lance opens his mouth to say something along those lines—or something more stupid, who knows—but Keith beats him to it. He sighs from beside Lance and stands up, shouldering his bag.

“Come on,” he says, looking expectantly at Lance. “I’ve already got the first one planned in my head.”

Lance sits up straight. “Where are we going?” He’s trying to recall the wording of the essay question. The properties of agate as a hobgoblin repellent, right?

“Library.” Keith looks at him, like Lance is dense and Lance scowls at him, like Keith is obnoxious.

Keith doesn’t bother waiting for him and is halfway down the Great Hall before Lance catches up to him. He tries to elbow Keith in the ribs as he boasts about what he’s going to write in his first paragraph but Keith is quick and he dodges all too well.

~

Guessing the password to the Gryffindor common room is the easy part. What's more difficult is convincing the Fat Lady to let him in. The Headmaster isn’t as strict about keeping the houses separated as Lance heard it used to be, but it still isn’t a piece of cake to visit people other common rooms. The castle is old and traditional, it takes it longer to adapt. Lance is pretty sure he just looks miserable enough for her to take pity on him. Or something. Maybe he really is just that handsome.

She stares grumpily at him the same way his aunt does then huffs, “Oh alright then. Tell this friend of yours to make sure you don’t make a habit of this. Don’t want to attract the Headmaster’s attention.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Lance says, finding enough of himself to salute to her with his free hand. “Thank you.” He won’t be making a habit of this.

She swings open and Lance steps in through the hole, trying to keep his broom from hitting the frame. (He always thought the hole was weird and impractical. Why can’t they just have a door?) With dinner in full swing floors below there are only a few students in the common room but they all turn to look at Lance. He twists his fingers into fists to keep from fidgeting, but it doesn’t stop the flush he can feel in his cheeks. They look away almost as quickly but full of shame and bitterness as he is, the attention is like sandpaper on his skin.

“Lance?”

Keith is standing at the door to the dorms. He’s holding his broom and wearing his Quidditch robes, that vivid scarlet as bold and brash as the House it belongs to. They fit him better this year; they’re not hanging off scrawny shoulders anymore, or reaching too far down past knobbly knees. His fingerless gloves don’t look out of place when he’s dressed like this.

It stings. The sight of him stings behind Lance’s eyes because it just reinforces the fact that Keith is on his house’s Quidditch team and that after a year of steady training Lance still isn’t good enough for his. He hadn’t been able to look at Keith for a full day after the captain assembled the team. He wants to hate Keith for this, just a little bit. He really wants to but then he’s standing in the Gryffindor common room isn’t he.

Lance’s throat feels stuffed up with cotton. “Hey man.” He licks his lips. He doesn’t know why he’s here. It’s more difficult to be here than anything else he’s done in the last four days. Harder than it was to hear the Slytherin captain say he was sorry, Lance just hadn’t made the cut. Harder than seeing Hunk’s face, folded into pity. Harder than writing a letter to his parents. This feels like asking for a favour.

He doesn’t know why he’s here except he does; because humans flying is the plainest, most obvious form of magic you could think of and Lance hasn’t seen anyone fly like Keith does. He thinks when they fly together, he can taste it.

He doesn’t want to ask.

Keith—like a gift, like chance—doesn’t make him. His gaze flicks down to the broom Lance is holding. “Just let me—” he starts, pulling at the collar of his robes. The orange light of the fire makes his eyes look darker than they usually are and his face sharper. “I’ll be down in a second, okay?”

Lance nods slowly. “Okay,” he says and he thinks giving Keith answers might be easier anyway.

~

“Lance!”

Keith doesn’t say it especially loudly—he doesn’t move from his seat or raise his arm or do anything particularly attention-grabbing, but his eyes are clear and his smile is open-mouthed even if it’s small and to Lance it’s the same. Beside him Shiro’s eyes flick away to Lance from whatever he's spelling and back again, and he offers a quick smile in welcome. “Hi Lance.”

“Hey,” Lance says, slotting into the space Keith makes for him at the Gryffindor table. “What's going on?”

“Watch.” Keith says, turning his attention to Shiro. There isn’t a lot that makes him so visibly happy as his brother does. He just looks easier when Shiro’s around, like there aren’t any hard edges in the world and Keith smooths himself out to match. Lance thinks having Shiro around does that to most people, but he has to be the only one who can do it to Keith.

Shiro winks at them before pointing his wand wordlessly to the bewitched ceiling of the Great Hall. This deep into winter it’s a formidable blend of greys that sparkles with falling snow. Lance has gotten used to its magic enough that he doesn’t always spend five minutes watching the heavens move, but whenever he does it’s always worth his attention.

Today is no different. In fact it seems to be even more marvellous than other times with the snowflakes twinkling in the candlelight far beyond their usual reach. Their shape seems to hold real and true, without that sense of illusion they usually have. It's beautiful, but nothing especially remarkable in a place like this.

And then, “Ah!” Something tiny and cold lands on the side of Lance’s nose making him recoil. Keith’s dark hair is collecting a few of the snowflakes, stark in contrast. “Merlin’s beard! Wow.”

Shiro grins from behind Keith. “Neat trick, right?”

“It's fantastic,” Keith says.

He’s right of course. Shiro has managed to make an image reality which is desperately tricky and probably not on the syllabus. Not only that but it was wordless magic, and Veronica has had enough trouble with that for Lance to begin to understand the difficulty.

But he likes Keith’s pigtails so instead of saying any of that, he laughs. “You never seen snow before or something?”

Keith takes his eyes off the snow for the first time since it began falling just to roll them and send Lance a look “Of course I have. I just—” He cups his hands to catch more flakes as they fall and the moment they touch his skin he loses all of that sarcastic edge. He shrugs. “Magic.”

Lance cups his hands to catch his own and sure. He gets it.

~

The first time Lance visits the hospital wing it's a bright new spring morning. He arrives out of breath and the wrong kind of hot in his thick robes.

Keith’s robes are laying beside him on the bed—the only one occupied in the whole room—and Lance can’t see the stains from here but Keith’s shirt is clean and his face is spattered red so he feels it’s fair to assume. Keith can’t seem to sit still and his frown is deeper than ever, his eyes flitting angrily around the room. It doesn’t take long for them to find Lance when he walks in.

This is a perfectly heavy situation to make light. Lance is ready with a line, the words are wrapped nice and neat in brown paper packaging tied up with string, smile ready for launch. Then Keith’s mouth flattens into a line, he looks away, and the little package dissolves where it sits.

Lance has felt all sorts of things about Keith but he’s never been afraid around him, for him. He looks at the purple explosion that is Keith’s nose, the blood swelling on his lip, the messy gash high on his right cheek, and it all tumbles down into a cold feeling in his chest.

“Keith?”

Keith is in Gryffindor; he’s brave, so he meets Lance’s gaze just as quickly as he avoided it and holds it now, lifting his jaw like Lance is the one who bruised his knuckles into it.

“Don’t tell Shiro,” he says.

Lance thinks Shiro is head boy, and that he’s popular, that he’s on friendly terms with everyone including the professors. Keith sees him think it; he already knows.

“Okay,” Lance says. He falls into the chair next to the bed and before he can remember the rules of politeness, the rules of friendships, he asks, “What happened?”

“Got into a fight.” He says it like a dare. He says it like an accusation, his face is drawn in an anger that's cracking with its own heat. It takes a moment for Lance to remember it’s not for him.

“Isn't this where you tell me I should see the other guy?” he says.

Keith blinks at him but Lance can see him leveling out. Eventually, Keith gives in and grimaces, the kind he does when he doesn’t want Lance to think he's funny (which has been a lost cause since the beginning).

“You’ll see him later, probably,.” Keith shrugs. His eyes aren’t so unhappy now. “He’ll be hard to miss,” Keith says, and it’s a thrill of mischief in Lance’s blood.

“What did you do?” he asks.

“Hexed him.” Keith is proud when he says it. They both know he shouldn’t be but they also both know he probably deserved it.

“What’d you get for it?”

“Detention.”

“How many?”

“Just one.”

Lance relaxes. It’s no more than what Keith has already received. Keith’s a good student but he’s far from a favourite. Hunk likes to say it’s because he doesn’t like injustice. Lance likes to say Gryffindors are just thick in the head.

He grins and says it to Keith without so many words. “That’s 8-0. I’m winning by a mile.”

Keith rolls his eyes, already opening his mouth to argue back when old Madame Balmera comes over with her wand and potions at the ready to turn Keith right back into the pretty little Quidditch player Gryffindor loves to shove down everyone’s throat. Lance pulls a face at him from behind the nurse, stretching the skin of his eyes in ways his sister would be horrified at. Keith sticks out his tongue predictably and it’s a hundred times more palatable.

~

Captain Lacroix clears his throat for attention. It’s not something he strictly needs to do, everyone is always paying him attention anyway. Lance has been hanging onto every word, every move—every breath, almost—since he was first asked to substitute on the team as Seeker by Lacroix a week ago. The Slytherin Quidditch captain: famous for his charisma and his magical ability as a Chaser.

“Alright, Team Slytherin,” he says, showing his teeth in a crooked grin. It’s a lazy grin, a pretty one. Famous for his smile.

It makes Lance wonder for the thousandth time what Keith’s will be like when he sees him. There on the pitch and ready to play against him for real this time. He’s kept it a surprise for him because this was always going to be something spectacular; it has to be spectacular. Lance remembers what it was like on Platform 9 ¾ the first time he was going to Hogwarts and how excitement seemed like such a pale word. He thinks that might be how he feels now. He’s awash with it.

“Shall we?” Lacroix says. Absolute legend.

The team falls into line as they make their way out onto the pitch, natural as a river, with Lance bringing up the rear. The stands are wild and living, rushing with blood that’s matched in the colour of Gryffindor’s robes approaching them from the opposite side of the stands. At the back of their line the Gryffindor team captain—prefect and daughter of the Headmaster, Allura—looks as unbeatable as Lance wants to feel. Keith leads his team to centre pitch and his face is paper smooth. He hasn’t seen Lance yet. Lance resists the urge to leap out from behind his teammates, he resists resists resists then—

A ripple in the water, a flicker; Keith’s eyes fasten onto him.

If Lance had any more practice at curbing smiles he’d be able to keep his own smug but it just keeps widening, the birth of a valley. This isn’t pride he’s showing this is all just sunburst happiness, it’s unrestrained. Keith reaches him, everyone coming to a stop, and he’s the same. All sun.

“Nice robes,” he says in a voice Lance knows was meant to be a whisper.

Lance only says, “Thanks,” because if he says anything else he’ll tell him the whole story right now, he’ll spill it all to him and he’ll miss the actual match.

“I can’t believe you skipped breakfast,” Keith laughs which makes Lance laugh too and of course they nearly do miss it when their captains shake hands, when Mr Blaytz says the words he always does before he blows his whistle.

“Alright children,” he says with his bright broad smile.

Lance watches Keith mouth at him, _Tell me after I win_. He laughs quietly.

“Let’s have a good, clean game.”

~

Lance loves school. He loves learning, he loves sitting in class and completing exercises. He loves being helpful to teachers and he loves being challenged, being pushed to know more and more and more. He hates studying.

“I hate studying,” he grumbles. He flicks at his quill, resting in the ink pot (which yes, Veronica, he knows it’s bad for the quill). The Hufflepuff common room is more comfortable than the library by far, but Lance can’t settle. He knows he’s not technically forbidden from being here, but it feels uncomfortable, and sometimes the other Hufflepuff students stare at their little trio. Still, if any house is going to be okay with letting students from other houses lounge there, it’s this one.

Keith grunts in agreement from the other side of the table. “Me too,” he says. He’s leaning into his chair to let his head back, totally flopped and hopeless. His parchment in front of him is totally blank. Lance looks at his own, half a foot covered with his meager notes.

“I’m doing better than you, man,” Lance says, grinning when Keith gives him the finger.

“You two are stressing me out even more than I already am,” Hunk whisper-shouts, his own quill flying across parchment. His hair is sticking up in all directions, there is spittle at the corner of his mouth, and the crazed look in his eye is even worse than it was for their Christmas exams. “I’m going to cry if you don’t shut up. I can’t. Fail my exams.”

Lance opens his mouth to prod and poke but he just catches a mouthful of crumpled up parchment. Keith explodes in wild laughter, rocking in his chair and Lance chokes, hacking out a cough and tonguing the parchment out of his mouth.

“Oh my god,” Hunk whimpers.

Keith buries his face in his hands, still laughing. “Oh my god.”

“Oh my god!” Lance hisses between coughs, desperately trying to conceal his own laughter. “Keith! You d— ugh! Blegh.” He coughs again and tries to glare. “Was there any ink on that?”

Keith shakes his head and wipes at his eyes. “Too good,” he says.

Lance turns to make puppy eyes at Hunk, hoping for faux sympathy at the very least, but Hunk is just breathing deeply with his eyes closed, an incredible frown drawing his eyebrows tight.

“I have,” he says, between breaths, “574 bullet points left to write out.” He looks pleadingly at the two of them. “ _Please_.”

Lance catches Keith’s eye and they’re about to apologise when a giant ball of lint? Fluff? A kind of soft-but-also-feral-looking tumbleweed? lands on Hunk’s notes. A part of the softish scourer swipes at the parchment, spreading the wet ink into an unreadable mess. They all stare for a moment, then Hunk makes a quiet, wounded noise, Lance looks at Keith, and Keith grabs at the flattened dandelion and whispers, “Oh, Biff.”

“You fiend,” Hunk says weakly, picking up his documents. “You monster. I have to start again.”

“We’re so sorry, Hunk,” Lance says, sweeping all of his things into his school bag and giving Keith pointed looks to do the same. “We’re going to leave you be.” Keith does it one-handed, holding the now confirmed-a-living-thing-because-of-its-quiet-yowling under one arm and grabbing his things with the other.

“Who is this?” Lance asks in the safety of the corridor. He holds his fingers out for what he thinks is a cat to smell.

“Biff,” Keith replies.

Lance hands him a tissue.

“No—what,” Keith snaps, jerking away. He struggles to adjust his shoulder strap with the cat in his arms. “His name is Biff.”

Lance fixes it for him. “Like from ‘Back to the Future’?”

“Exactly, yes.”

“That doesn’t really explain anything about him.” Lance makes eye contact with Biff. Biff blinks at him slowly and intelligently.

“No,” Keith agrees. They both watch Biff for a moment, making their way unconsciously out under the sun. Keith adds, “Biff is the ugliest cat I’ve ever met,” which also doesn’t explain anything. “Shiro says he’s great to practice magic with, and Shiro’s friend Matt says he knows about all the secret passageways in Hogwarts. But mostly I’ve just noticed he farts a lot.” Biff lays unbothered and luxuriously on his back in the cradle of Keith’s arms doesn’t seem to take offence at the insult. If anything, the way he swishes his outrageously fluffy tail up to Keith’s face and around his neck could almost be described as affectionate. Besides—Keith’s not wrong.

Biff is mostly made of hair. It’s patchy; long in places and short in others, spiking unevenly and alarmingly all over his body, with equal parts soft-looking and matted. Mostly black but peppered with grey and white in places like his one white toe and the uneven white blob around his eye (which is also, strangely, totally white). The parts of his skin that are showing are a weird mix of grey and green, like someone had once spilled food dye on him and he’d not had a bath since. His tongue sticks out perpetually over overgrown bottom teeth.

“He is definitely the ugliest cat I’ve ever met too,” Lance says, “but I feel uncomfortable talking about him this way when he’s right here.” He delicately scratches behind Biff’s ear when Biff lets him, starting up a dull, annoying purr. “My mother always says cats have their own magic and that it’s older than all of us. And that they don’t pay attention to the borders between wizard and Muggle. He probably understands us.”

“Yeah.” Keith readjusts his hold and scratches at Biff’s side. He gives Lance a strange glance. “My dad used to say that too.”

Lance immediately focuses on Keith. Keith doesn’t talk much about his family before Shiro. In fact he’s never spoken about it all except for the one time a (stupid _idiot_ ) classmate asked him if his mother was a witch and he snapped back that she was an alien. Lance still isn’t 100% sure he wasn’t joking. But Keith had been angry for the remainder of the week after that. Angry on the outside and really, really sad on the inside. Lance and Hunk could both see it. Lance even wrote to his parents to ask what to do but there was only so much they could offer from back home. If Lance could, he would have made Keith his Abuela’s famous hot chocolate or arroz con leche but he still doesn’t know where the kitchens are.

Nothing he or Hunk did seemed to cheer him up so they had settled on just hanging around him as much as possible. And now, when it comes to talking about Keith’s biological family, caution has always been the side to err on.

Biff squirms in Keith’s arms until Keith lets him go. He trots off, veering away from the Great Lake and towards the other side of the castle grounds.

“He also said cats always know where they’re going,” Keith says. His voice is steady and almost indifferent, giving nothing away at all. “Come on.”

Lance runs to catch up. “Was he also as impulsive and reckless as you?” He winces as he finishes the question, afraid he will make Keith bottle up for a week again.

Biff meows loudly in front of them before Keith answers. “No.” He rolls his sleeves up. “Well not really for most of his life—he was usually teaching me not to be like that. But then he ran into a burning house and died so those lessons went up in smoke.” Keith snorts at his own joke but it’s bitter.

To his own surprise, Lance keeps asking questions less because he’s curious and more because he wants Keith to keep talking. “Why did he do that?”

“He was a fireman.”

“A Muggle?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know I was a wizard until I met Shiro. Bit of a nasty shock when I found out.”

Lance can’t possibly see why. Being a wizard is the best part of his life, and judging by the look on Keith’s face whenever they practice magic in class, it’s the case for him too. But Lance doesn’t ponder on it long because now that he’s really listening for it, he can hear the difference in Keith’s voice. It’s not indifference, it’s a veil, and a thin one at that. There’s a lot brewing under the surface of what he’s saying and how he says it, and even if he can’t figure out what it is, Lance can tell that it’s there.

“So you’re the same as me then,” Lance says.

“What?” Keith looks at him, his big, frowning eyebrows tangled together.

Lance elbows him playfully. He doesn’t like hearing that hollow depth in Keith’s voice. “Muggle dad.”

“Oh.” Keith blinks. They both ignore what’s missing in the statement. He looks at Lance and his eyes are more settled. “Yeah. I suppose.”

A large shadow falls on them and they stop at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Biff senses their hesitancy and stops too, but he prowls the line impatiently, meowing.

Lance raises an eyebrow. “I thought Matt says he knows all the secret passages. The Forbidden Forest isn’t a secret. It’s so much not a secret that we’re not allowed in there.”

“Yeah but it’s _full_ of secrets.”

“There is no way we’re going in there today,” Lance says. “If we die in there, I won’t pass my exams and then my mother will _really_ kill me.”

“Oh come on.” Keith smirks at him. “You’re not scared, are you?”

Lance’s face burns but he refuses to let up. Something about how it was a very warm day until the shadow of the trees fell on them is getting under his skin. “What did your dad used to say when you were about to do something impulsive and reckless? Come on, Keith. Just—” He looks at Biff who has grown too impatient and slips fluidly past the first line of trees. “Just not today, alright?”

Keith sighs but he turns back to the castle. “Fine. But we’re not going back to the Hufflepuff common room. It’s too stuffy.”

“Of course, Your Highness,” Lance says, dropping into a bow.

Keith pushes him so hard he falls on the grass. “Don’t push it,” Keith says.

Lance looks at him incredulously but they’re equally unable to hold in their laughter. Besides, Lance manages to sweep Keith’s out from under him and then they’re both racing each other towards the Lake, letting loose insults and laughter like they’re equal change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](http://oikwatru.tumblr.com/) i guess


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